From the Forums: Thoughts on new Lumias, happy with accent colours?

It's time for a From the Forums to wrap up the excitement from this year's Mobile World Congress. We've had an eventful week where Windows Phone Central has covered the latest headlines from the floor in Barcelona, but what's been happening in our forums? We'll quickly walk through some light-hearted threads to cool everyone down and return back to normality.

Nokia announced the Lumia 720 and Lumia 520 Windows Phones that bring new price points to the platform with the latter turning out to be the cheapest Lumia Windows Phone yet. While the two smartphones are low and mid-range hardware, they won't disappoint as we're talking dual-core support with decent cameras and displays. The only downside to both devices is a restricted amount of internal storage, but expandable with microSD.

Forum member squire777 kicked us off with a new thread detailing his thoughts:

"In regards to the 520, it is a very nice phone considering the price (roughly $200). If anyone is looking for a budget phone they have two good choices now in the 520 and 620. I quite like the 720 as well and will pick one up if we find out that it has Band IV support hidden away inside (Nokia site does not list it at the moment). However at the moment it looks like there aren't any carriers in North America that will sell it, and it looks like Nokia is targeting Asia with both the 520 and 720."

We've provided our thoughts on the two handsets, as well as being pleasantly surprised by the quality and looks of the hardware on offer. While Nokia did not announce a new flagship Lumia (or EOS) Windows Phone, those of us who have only just managed to purchase a Lumia 920 will feel relaxed that their device has not been succeeded just yet.

Changing the accent theme of a Windows Phone (including whether you have a light or dark background) helps keep the UI feeling fresh and appealing, without the user having to dive deep and perform a mass amount of alterations. But is the colour selection enough? We've lightly touched on this before, with many consumers calling out for a simple colour selection tool for new and unique colours to be applied.

"With the myriad of color choices out there, the colors chosen as 'accents' are a bit bland and uninspiring. I know where the inspiration for the overall look has come from, but considering how big the color spectrum is, maybe not only MSFT, but other companies should really consider the gamut of colors for their screens and OS. Really surprised that there isn't an option to choose my own accent color."

Miscellaneous: If you could no longer use Windows Phone, iOS or Android?

If Windows Phone was no longer a reality, or for some reason you couldn't use the platform any longer, what would you choose as an alternative? Restricting the choices available to just iOS and Android, which would it be? Member nube_android created the thread to ask the intriguing question. We looked over the title a few times, but found it to be a strong question indeed.

From the Forums: Thoughts on new Lumias, happy with accent colours?

You should ask on the forums. With any luck, your forum post should then be selected in a 'from the forums' posting. People can then click on the from the forums post linking them to the from the forums thread about how much the from the forums article..is posted.completing its cycle of meta ness

Of course, but does that matter? If a user wanted to make his windows pc background the same colour as his icons and text, rendering it useless, he can. Why should wp be so tightly locked down? They go on about it reflecting your personality and being individual to you, yet you can only abide by a very limited choice of visual styles. Imagine the undertaker wants a WP. He would want his WP to have gun metal effect tiles on a black background with a skull wrap around it. Why cant he?

I am of the opinion that whether you like it or not, you ARE representing Windows Phone when you have it out and about. If I was Microsoft, I wouldn't want a potential buyer be turned off the idea of Windows Phone because they got their first impression from their buddy's crappy taste in accent colors and text. I don't know if that is the reason why more options aren't available, though.

This is exactly what I was thinking.
Their creative director must have really put his foot down on this idea, I'm sure the design team on WP discussed it.
Expand it for sure, but let the no-doubt astute designers select the colours.

I think there is a lot more to the colours than people realize. The accent colour is something that has been design to work throughout the whole phone, not just the native stuff. This means that for users even the apps feel like they belong because your chosen accent is used within the app.

Giving the user more choice of colours is very hard, so many colours will clash with app designs. In fact, the HTC colour on the 8x isn't as good as the standard accent colours, it sometimes gets lost a bit. If as user goes into an app with a completely custom accent colour that just doesn't show up then they will have a bad experience - much better to limit the service to colours that have been chosen to work whatever!!

I'd like a rainbow theme... Each tile in a different color corresponding to the rainbow for native tiles and apps that use the native colors. Perhaps this could be MS' tribute to gay pride month in June?... One can hope!!

Two years ago when I got my Arrive, I was disappointed not only by the small list of available colours, but also by the fact that I couldn't choose individual tiles to be specific colours. I would really like that ability - some App tiles come with their own colour, so there is already SOME variety built in. But I don't want a shared inbox, and I would love to have my various email accounts represented by their own colour...

Definitely Android.....im a fan of both windows phone and Android...Android presents a huge advantage over windows phone in that virtually everything is customizable..but what windows phone has over it is the sleek interface and colorful vibrant phones without having to shell out more money for a stupid case. Not to mention there is no Android keyboard I like more than windows phones keyboard . IOS has gotten boring as it hasn't changed in forever, the only thing that worries me is that with HTC coming out with there new ONE phone with blinkfeed that many of the great elements of windows phone will be copied and people will just go with Android because they know they can get whatever app they virtually want. I know I said the any app comment but its the truth having both a Lumia 920 and galaxy s3 I can attest to the fact that windows phone apps just aren't up to snuff with ios or Android...where are the HBO go, max go, showtime anytime apps. This is a media driven world and the fact that I can't just download a movie or tv show from the market place does bother me some I don't like always having to go to my computer just to put a movie on my phone, when Microsoft incorporates this then we will know windows phone is truly advancing

Not many accent colors worked for me and my taste. I had trouble with being able to distinguish unread emails in the list, for example, with some accent colors such as steel. Just didn't contrast enough with the white background. I use Nokia blue.

Still would like to have a variety of colors, and the ability to change tile colors individually. Love to have all my phone tiles organize by color for quick access. i.e. media (blue), social (green), ect. Or just a rainbow of tile colors just for kicks.

I pick option 3 blow my brains out cause I didn't leave webos and come to WP by accident I hate Apple and Android OS is ugly no matter how customizable it is and I can't believe tile colors created such a heated debate teal and the new mauve are the only ones I use

I have no love or need for iOS or Android. Wouldn't have gotten any smartphone if there's no WP. I'll rather get a Windows tablet for all my "smart" needs. But for a phone, I'll always go to Nokia for their build quality and value for money, no matter what OS it's using. I'll probably get an Asha feature phone instead.